


What Dies Inside

by inveigler81



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inveigler81/pseuds/inveigler81
Summary: An engineered virus begins to wipe out the wizarding world, leaving Harry and his nearest and dearest struggling to cope. Set post Half-Blood Prince, rendered slightly more AU by The Deathly Hallows. Written for Apocalyptothon.





	

“I take it…that you’re intending to lay blame for this whole affair at my door?”

“No. I know you had nothing to do with it, but it’s because of you, because of you that this all happened.”

“Then it is, by equal measure, because of you.”

“I know that too.”

“Then why have you come?”

“Revenge.”

~

No one noticed it at first. By the time they did, it was already far too late. Everyone was so consumed with the war, the manoeuvring, the concealment, the balance. Things had been chaotic at best, what with the absence of cohesive leadership in Dumbledore’s wake and the abandonment of any semblance of routine or normality following the closure of Hogwarts.

It was a virus, something about as fearsome as a Boggart to the wizarding world. This one was different though. It was made that way. It was conceived in a government lab, supposedly by military technicians but it screamed of ministry assistance. If it weren’t for her opinion of Muggles, Harry wouldn’t have been surprised if had been tied up with one of Umbridge’s pink bows.

It had begun as an attempt at a tangible Muggle cure for lycanthropy but it was found that instead of reversing mystical properties, it destroyed them - in violent, protracted, haemorrhagic fashion. Instead of retreating from the idea, they thought they could improve it, hone it, target it. Through some great and terrible butchering of ritual and prophecy it was hoped it could eradicate Voldemort, Horcruxes and all. By all accounts he was indeed stricken early, the disease taking with it a number of Death Eaters and helping turn the tide of battle. The virus however, like all viruses, particularly a magical virus, had other ideas.

Wizards and witches started dying at a terrifying rate, every charm and cure from any book or scroll seemed only to prolong the agony of the afflicted. The wizarding world became frantic and fractious as it hunted for a cure, the world of Muggles left completely to its own devices.

The one thing the virus didn’t seem to infect at first, were the Dementors, perhaps so corrupt and ruinous already that the virus could find no purchase. They spread like wildfire, left unchecked and unmanned. Muggle media went from being awash with the alarming findings of the corpses of giants to the hordes of fell spectres beginning to range the land.

The virus did seem to work on one level though, it seemed perversely loyal to the portents of its creation. Ron had frequently wondered aloud as to why they still seemed to be alright and none of them had the heart to answer or to give Harry more than a sideways glance as he sat alone, brooding incessantly. The protection of the proximity or the love of the boy who lived, it would seem, must last only so long. They could find no other reason for it.

The Weasley’s began to pass first, Hermione and Harry taking refuge in the Burrow as the world around them began to collapse. They helped Ron and Ginny tend to their parents and to Bill and Fleur, they weren’t even sure of the whereabouts of Charlie, Percy, Fred or George, the clock showing nothing but ‘Missing’.

It was on a clear, autumn day, the leaves radiant and the earth rich, that Harry helped Ron dig the graves in the field behind the house. He held him as he broke and cried and lay down in the dirt in a crumpled heap.

Soon any and all pretence of protection or secrecy was lost as things went from bad to worse. Harry found it a dismal irony that it took the world ending to unite the worlds of Muggles and magic. Unity perhaps wasn’t the word, his mouth forming a bizarre twist of a smile at the failing newspaper headlines of terrorist cells in cloaks and cowls. No one ever knew if the virus mutated or if the Dementors spread it to Muggles by way of their kiss but they began to expire at an equally exponential rate.

~

There was nothing they could do for Hagrid when the time came. His jaw had seized close to the end and his lungs sounded like they had become increasingly engulfed with fluid. Before that though he had told them how proud he had always been of all of them and started to cry. Hermione couldn’t watch without erupting in floods of tears and so Ron had taken her outside to comfort her.

Harry sat alone with him in the confines of his house, the wind trembling the little windows and buffeting about the walls. The noise was a welcome distraction from Hagrid’s troubled breathing. Harry sat with one hand clutched in one of Hagrid’s giant, blistered palms. He looked lovingly at him through misty eyes from where he lay, sprawled on his enormous bed. It took every last bit of Harry to hold that gaze and not fall to pieces. If he could give Hagrid one last thing it would be to stand strong for him, as Hagrid always had for Harry, be the man Hagrid always hoped he would be.

One last, rattling shudder of breath was all it took. Harry slowly reached up and delicately closed his eyes, oblivious to the weeping sores and the matted mess of beard and hair. Hermione was inconsolable and clung intensely to Ron as Harry made a start in the vegetable patch with a shovel.

“We…we can do that with magic,” she managed tremulously.

Harry gave them a look that quelled any argument and Ron went to get another shovel. It took hours and it was dark and cold by the time they’d laid Hagrid to rest. His body’s resistance to magic made moving him a strenuous and ungainly undertaking but they were all agreed that Hagrid was never overly concerned with inelegance. As an afterthought, Hermione scattered seeds over the fresh earth as they said their goodbyes, helping give life to plants and animals seemed only fitting.

~

Harry was with Ron when he died. They had gone to the aid of a military blockade they’d seen in passing as they’d flown low over a midland forest. Dementors were overrunning it and Muggles and soldiers alike were fleeing in terror. The rain flew in menacing arcs, the cloud so black it was blue as the frost of dread came on, the very trees seeming to twist into snarling hands.

Harry only got as far as ‘Expecto…’ 

“Harry, look out!” Ron shouted as he shoved him roughly aside, the cracks that rang out deafening. Harry landed on one knee in the chill mud, wand levelled, looking for the source of the jinx or curse.

“Blimey that hurt,” Ron mumbled. Harry looked up at him in horror as he stood, momentarily frozen, one hand to his breast, dark crimson welling through his fingers. He collapsed backwards to the sodden ground and Harry rushed to his side, everything in him going cold.

“Just lie still!” He ordered frantically as he tried to think of an appropriate charm. Black shadows wheeled past and he could hear screams and cries not far off but he paid them no mind.

“What did you say they call those again?” Ron asked in a small, quiet voice, “Guns?” He coughed and blood misted upon his lips, rain plastering his hair and making his face seem all the more pale.

“I can’t…it’s not…it won’t…” Harry spat nonsensically as he worked feverishly, the wound stalwartly refusing to close.

“S’alright Harry…I was start…ing to get the rash anyway,” he wheezed, “It’s bet…better this way…”

“Just hang on Ron! Just hang on!” Harry snapped, his voice cracking.

“I bet my dad would’ve liked to see one of those,” Ron went on almost wistfully, the flow of scarlet beginning to spread. Harry pressed his palms to it helplessly as the storm beat down, his wand abandoned in the mud.

“Ron, you can’t….” Harry begged.

“Harry, tell Herm…Hermione…tell her…”

“You can’t do this Ron!” Tears ran in among the raindrops.

“You’re probably right…you were always better at talking to g…girls anyway, just tell her something…I dunno…sortof heroic…but that she might…actually believe.” His voice had become quieter, more distant.

“Don’t die.” Harry made it sound more of a hopeless question.

“Y’know…I always wished I was you, but…I don’t…I don’t know now…I think I’d be too scared to be al…all on my own…”

“Please don’t die.”

“Y’know something H-Harry…spiders don’t really seem…that scary now…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Take care…of Ginny won’t you?” Ron asked beseechingly as his breath grew short.

“I’m so sorry!” Harry’s voice began to rise.

“Please…” His eyes beginning to close.

“Yes!!!” Harry shouted at him, cradling his body up from the frozen ground.

“I’m going to…”

Harry never found out what Ron was going to do but he always wondered at what those last words might have been.

~

Hermione left after that. She blamed Harry for everything, told him that Ron had only died because he was Harry’s friend. He hadn’t the spirit or the want to tell her Ron had probably only lived this long because of that self same fact. She had told him not to look for her and Ginny had thought that might be best but Harry had found her again two months later.

She was alone in a small seaside cottage in Cornwall and far along with the symptoms. Ginny couldn’t bear it and remained barricaded in the deserted bed and breakfast they’d taken up in for the night. Hermione was bundled up in blankets but Harry could still see a broad trail of angry wheals coming up her neck and scouring back across her scalp. Her cough was constant and wet and her breathing was laboured, not aided much by the cigarette trailing from one bandaged hand.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” he offered lamely. She looked at him witheringly and tried to laugh, a piteous sound that sent her into racking spasms. He tried to go to her but she held up her hand.

“We still don’t know for certain how this works,” she warned him off. “I’m sorry Harry. I shouldn’t have blamed you.”

“None of that matters now.” He shook his head.

“You’re right about that.”

“Did you get back to your parents in time?” He asked with concern.

“In time for what?” She sighed, “If you mean to watch them die in agony, then yes.” She added coldly.

“I’m sorry.” Harry’s answer was quiet.

“So am I.” She looked away and took another drag, her blistered hand shaking. “How’s Ginny?”

“Still no signs,” he answered levelly.

“You’re keeping isolated I hope?”

“I don’t think there’s anyone much left to worry about, I only found you because you left a light on in here last night.”

“I was read…rea…” she went off into another fit of coughing and this time Harry ignored her as he came around the table to sit next to her. He stubbed out her cigarette and held her hand. She smiled kindly at him. “I’d ask you to take care of this for me Harry but I know you won’t.” A chill ran through him at the thought.

“I don’t think I’d have to worry about being forgiven for it anymore but no…I couldn’t. I’d have to want to for it work.” He shook his head, his insides growing slowly numb.

“I know. It doesn’t matter though.” She smiled and her head nodded strangely.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve found another way, rather primitive but it should do the job.” She gestured at the kitchen counter where sat a half empty spirit bottle and several plastic pill containers.

“You haven’t…you can’t…” Harry began in a panic “You’ve got to sick them up!” He demanded, scrambling for his wand.

“You have got to be kidding! Do you have any idea how many times a day I’m sick to begin with?” She asked a little foggily, “And why? I’ve seen what this does Harry, we both have, I don’t want that, I just want it to be over, I’ve wanted it to be over since…” she trailed off.

“Since Ron died. I know.” Harry finished for her and stilled himself. “Don’t do this,” he asked with quiet desperation.

“You can’t stop me Harry. Besides, I think it’s too far gone now anyway, I’m feeling awfully tired.” She emphasised the point with a yawn and her eyelids looked all the heavier.

“I’m not…I mean I won’t…I just…I…I can’t do this on my own…” Harry rambled, feeling that same slow well of anguish he tried to close off as much as he possibly could.

“Yes you can Harry. You always have, you’ll be alright, you’ll see.” She smiled a genuine, beatific smile.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he responded honestly and looked down at his feet.

“You’re not alone, you’ve got Ginny and she’s got you…”

“For how long?” He looked up sharply.

“I don’t know, no one does. I don’t think there’s anyone left who can know.” She shook her head, it had begun to loll more than a little.

“Please don’t do this,” he pleaded with her.

“I’m so sorry. Please don’t be angry with me. I love you Harry, and I’m going to miss you terribly…I miss everyone so much.” Her voice broke and tears welled from her eyes.

“So do I,” Harry breathed and he held her as she began to sob uncontrollably, “So do I.”

It wasn’t long before she dropped off. Harry carried her to her bed and pulled the blankets over her wasted form. He sat in a chair in the dark, wringing his hands about what best to do. The decision made itself in the end when her breath gave out. He walked dumbly through the cottage and out into the garden and stood clenching and unclenching his fists as he stared up at the clarity of the stars.

“WHY?!?!” He roared inarticulately at the night sky and slumped onto the back step like a fallen rag doll.

Another cold dawn, another grave dug.

~

Harry and Ginny found Fred at the Burrow when they came back, wan and pallid and bubonic. He was far from his usual self, he kept referring to himself as both Fred and George and refused to say what had become of his brother. He carried on as if George was still with him, as if he were some inseparable part of him. Perhaps he always was in a way, Harry had thought. Ginny had tried to go to him but he kept them at bay.

“Only came to pay our respects didn’t we George?” He spoke amiably. “That we did Fred, that we did. Don’t want to go spreading this thing about any more than it is already,” he kept on in the same tone.

“Where have you been?!” Ginny quailed, Harry lightly restraining her.

“Around and about, mum asked us to see to that overbearing ponce of a brother of ours didn’t she?” Fred shrugged.

“You mean Percy’s…?” Harry felt Ginny physically sag.

“Chaz too.” He shrugged again and swung one leg over his broom. Ginny held tighter to Harry.

“Looks like we’ll be next sis, George and I, I mean. Pity really, business was booming too. Nowadays…nothing’s really funny anymore.” He let out a long sigh. “Now now Fred, it’s not like you to be so cynical, chin up and all that,” Fred berated himself. “I’m trying George……I’m trying.”

“Where will you go?” Harry asked, Ginny had already begun quietly weeping.

“To that big joke shop in the sky one would imagine. Do look after him for us Gin, he can be a bit slow sometimes and you know how utterly useless he’d be without at least one Weasley in his life,” Fred instructed before kicking off into the lowering sky.

“Fred!!” Ginny cried out after him but he was already a fading shape far above.

~

“Where do you want to go?” Harry had asked as they gathered any and all belongings they wanted to keep.

“I don’t care, anywhere, just far, faraway from here, somewhere warm and safe.” Was all that she had said in reply.

They journeyed southeast across Europe, by apparition and by broom, the world around them seemingly dead and devoid. They slept where they wished, hotels for the most part, the idea of invading someone’s home still strangely wrong. Every day Harry would ask where she wanted to go and she only ever answered ‘Further.’ Harry thought it madness, there was nowhere left to go, though he had to agree that moving had to be preferable to staying still.

~

They had taken over a beach ‘hut’, though the 5-star definition of a hut was something far more palatial than the norm. The back deck opened out on the palm-shaded sands of an Indian beach, the waters clear and the heat sullen. Their passage down through Asia had been an oddly spiritual experience, there was something grounding about the shamanistic undercurrents of the place that spoke to the primal nature of their gifts.

Harry knew what time they had was borrowed, though he hoped against hope that it wasn’t, and so they had tried to live each and every moment. His own nervous apprehension still mingled with some dying sense of honour and duty. It made him reluctant and hesitant when Ginny first tried to make things more physical between them. It had led to a brief, though tempestuous row.

“I want this…you want this…what’s the problem?!” She snapped at him.

“I can’t…I just…I can’t!” Harry failed to explain, gesticulating wildly.

“You want to die a virgin? You think I want to die a virgin?!”

“Gin…I…” he stammered on, made uncomfortable by how strongly he was drawn to her, even while she railed at him.

“Why?! So you can wrap me in something white and pristine when you bury me Harry?” She threw at him.

“You’re their sister! You’re their daughter! I swore I’d look after you!” He answered hotly.

“You don’t think they’d want me to be happy?” She sounded indignant.

“Of course…I…I’m sorry,” he was at a loss.

“Y’know what Harry? Maybe you are better off on your own,” Ginny responded acidly and turned on her heel.

 

He’d found her on the beach later, repeatedly flinging a coconut at a rock with her wand.

“You should put some glasses on it, it’d look a bit more like me then,” he spoke quietly as he came up behind her.

“Well, if it’d make you see sense…” she snapped as she whirled around on him, eyes aflame, then suddenly startled by how close he was. He caught her by the wrist and pointed her wand away.

“Be careful what you wish for…” he smiled as he leant in and kissed her, differently than ever before now, there was something needier in it, something hungrier as his hand went up her back.

“Oh…” she breathed “good…” she added, her flustered anger becoming something else entirely.

Of course it had been awkwardly wondrous, the heat and the heart of it tearing open wounds of Harry’s both new and old. She’d held him close as he had finally crumbled into ruin, bawling and clawing at the bed, a ghastly sound interrupted only by the swoop of a ceiling fan and the surge of the sea.

They’d made love every day since. Today Harry sat staring at himself in the mirror from the end of the bed, his skin a surreal brown, the lightening of his scar a ponderous ebon. His unkempt hair was long and wild with sand and salt and caught at his fingers as he ran them through it. Ginny wandered in from the beach wearing the bottom half of a swimsuit and a cotton peasant blouse that left little to his imagination. She had as much of a tan as her pale complexion would allow, the richness of her hair held back by a patterned wrap of fabric. Ginny offered him half a mango, snacking wordlessly on the other half herself. Harry instead chose to kiss at where the juice ran back down her forearm and things degenerated from there.

“Did you see where the other half went?” She asked him afterwards, more than a little breathless. She twisted the grace of her back and her neck to look over the side of the bed and it was only then that Harry saw the small cluster of red where her hair usually hung. 

~

He only ever left her side to gather food and supplies as the illness came on, the rustic wealth of his surroundings, the myriad glory of its colours now as lost and dead to Harry as the turn of season at home.

They continued as if everything else was perfectly normal, or as normal as it could be. She tried to keep him away with pleas for his own safety and then with tantrums about how grotesque she was becoming but none of it mattered a damn to Harry. He held her clutched to him as she hacked and coughed and gasped for air, tearfully telling one another of their love and all that it meant until she seized and went mockingly limp. He refused to let go, spittle and sick and blood and fluid were the new routine, as much a part of Harry’s life as grave digging. It was only when she began to grow cold that he knew it was truly over.

‘Remember me’ were two words that would hang in his ears for as long as forever.

A last solitary something in Harry died. He built up a great pyre on the beach, not trusting himself to bury Ginny without fear of the temptation of exhuming her, if only to see her again or to attempt some horrific perversion of magic to try to bring her back. He fired the flames with the fuel of both worlds so that it flared so hot and so white his skin tightened and his eyes swam. In the end all that was left was a drift of light smoke and ghostly white ash.

Harry must’ve spent a straight three days lying on the stone floor of their hut, moving only to relieve himself, everything within him utterly numb or no longer there at all. Finally he moved far enough to sit on the sand as the sun set, unmoving as the waters washed up around him and receded again. He needed to leave.

He washed himself until his skin screamed and hacked away greats chunks of his lank hair. He scrutinised every inch of himself and breathed deep of the sultry night. Not one blister, not one tickle of a cough.

He dressed in comfortable clothes and packed up his belongings ensuring that he had the small collection of things that were the most important of all. He put on the watch Remus had given him to go with an old cloak of Sirius’ – he tried hard not to picture the tortured mass of half-man, half beast that was left of him towards the end. Tonks had done what she could, sick as she was and as defiant as ever, choosing to turn her blisters an iridescent shade of blue. He had something precious from each of them, though nothing specific from Ginny. He didn’t need anything, she had given him his heart and hers into the bargain.

He had a few stops he wanted to make once he got back, but there was someone he needed to see.

~

The smell was unspeakable as he picked his way up through the house. He had seen it countless times before now, in the dark from a cemetery, again through the pensieve with Dumbledore and a thousand times in his nightmares. He stepped over the crumpled and bloated bodies of Death Eaters, all but oozing from the folds of their robes and ridiculous masks. The hindquarters of a particularly rotund corpse protruded from a wall where the timbers had split and broken to accommodate it, one of its hands having an odd, silvery sheen.

“Couldn’t scarper away fast enough eh?” Harry asked the humming pile as he pushed into the master bedroom.

The disgusting, serpentine wreck buried in the enormous, ornate, black-clad four-poster haltingly raised his wand.

“Avad….ava….” The incantation was interrupted by a burst of throaty coughing.

“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that?” Harry mocked as he walked to the side of the bed and wrenched the wand from his hand.

“How….how…..dare you?!?” Voldemort spat at him, simultaneously snatching for his wand and trying to writhe away.

“It really is the same as mine isn’t it?” Harry ignored him, turning the wand over in his hand before slipping it into the folds of his robe. He tipped a pile of scrolls and papers off a chair and pulled it up to the foot of the bed before sitting down to examine the room. The curtains were all drawn and the air was thick with dust and the putrid stench of sick and urine and human decay. Scrolls and books and strange apparatus covered every surface, the desiccated ingredients for potions strewn about or staining the floors. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

“Come to kill me have you?”

“No.” Harry shook his head.

“You couldn’t anyway, you pathetic weakling. You still haven’t a clue where the last of my Horcruxes lie,” Voldemort wheezed.

“I don’t really care,”

“Then why are you here?” His horrid visage creased up with confusion.

“To watch you rot,” Harry answered honestly. “You said it yourself, you can’t ever really die without the Horcruxes being destroyed, which I have absolutely no intention of doing. You see, it seems that whatever I’m meant to do, be that killing you or dying trying, I’m still meant to do it. As you can see, I’m a picture of health. Course, just because I’m meant to do something doesn’t mean that I will and like you said, you can’t die. It does, however, look like you can suffer,” Harry smiled coldly at Voldemort. He liked to think he saw a flicker of dawning realisation in those emotionless slits.

“So it’s to be gloating then is it? I think I could even still best you at that boy. Where….where would you care for me to begin? Hmm?…Your parents perhaps? Their flea-ridden friend?…No? Dear old…Dumbledore? The litter of ginger whelps? That insufferable mudblood?” His vitriolic tirade left him panting, Harry making every effort to keep his face as determinedly serene as could be.

“You know something? You can’t upset me Tom, you can’t even make me angry. You see, I’ve got nothing left to lose, nothing left that you can ever take from me, in a twisted kind of way, I’m free. But it seems like there might be something you’ll want from me before too long.” Harry grinned at him.

“Do not call me by that name!” Voldemort shouted at him.

“What? Tom? What’re you going to do about it Tommy? Cough at me?” Harry mocked him.

“I’ll…I…” he began and then started up coughing again. He wiped a blood-encrusted hand across his mouth. “I take it…that you’re intending to lay blame for this whole affair at my door?”

“No. I know you had nothing to do with it, but it’s because of you, because of you that this all happened.”

“Then it is, by equal measure, because of you.”

“I know that too.”

“Then why have you come?”

“Revenge.”

“If…if you were to help me….we could, we could find an answer to this, we could find a way to restore things, to bring them all back…” Voldemort put to him in a tone of reason. Harry knew enough to know that it was cunning, not fear.

“Can you hear yourself? Help you?!” It came out with something of a bitter laugh. “I just came here to tell you that while now, I may be alone, at least I’ve had things beyond anything that you’ll ever experience, I’ve had a home and family and friends and love.”

“You think I care anything for such things?” Voldemort responded venomously.

“I know you do. You wouldn’t have become this thing without not having them. So, that said, I would stay but y’know, things to do Tom, things to do. Sun on my face, wind in my hair, birdsong and sea breeze and all of that. And you know, if you ever want a taste of what you’re missing…” At that Harry touched a finger to his scar. It was the reason he had known Voldemort was still alive, the reason he had known where to find him. He hadn’t spoken of it to the others to keep from souring some last sense of justice. “Y’know Tom, there was a time when I would’ve liked nothing better than to kill you. But now…personally…I hope you live forever.” Harry smiled quietly as he stood up and moved to the door.

“Wait….Harry…don’t go….” It might not have been fear, it might have been cunning, but Harry knew true loneliness when he heard it.

“Goodbye Tom.” Harry didn’t look back.

~

Harry visited a range of places after that. He wandered the halls and the towers of Hogwarts, would’ve slept a night in his old bed if the Fat Lady had been anywhere to be found. He didn’t ascend the tower of that fateful night, he probably never would. He had planned to visit Dumbledore’s office but no number of confectionaries that he named allowed him access. His map showed no names and no footprints, even the ghosts seemed to have gone, the portraits all empty, still and quiet.

He sat instead on the grass before Dumbledore’s tomb, staring at the wind worn marble and picking at the grass, speaking to Dumbledore of all that had happened and of nothing in particular.

He stood, for the first time, outside the house where his parents had died but didn’t go in. From there he travelled long and far. It took time to find the little town that he was looking for, it had been years ago after all. He rowed a boat out to the little island on a bright, clear day, the waters choppy and the sky distantly threatening rain but he did it with the sun on his back and the wind in his hair. Flocks of gulls called from on high and farmed the burgeoning schools of fish.

He might go looking for Hedwig, Fang and Crookshanks in the coming week but today was to be a quiet day. He sat down on the couch in the dingy little shack and set out a bottle of whiskey and his cigarettes and a lighter. He then put his bag on the floor and took out the gateaux he had taken from the freezer of a local supermarket, not really looking at the gun he’d taken from a dead soldier. He always kept it in the bottom of his bag and at the back of his mind just incase things became all too much. Rather primitive indeed, he thought with a smile.

Meticulously sticking candles in the cake, he lit them one by one, then sat back and stared around at the dilapidated little guesthouse. He poured himself a drink and lit a cigarette, letting the candles burn until the wax ran into the icing before blowing them out. He wasn’t really sure where to go next, but he could figure that out tomorrow, not today. He took a drag and then let out a long sigh, looking around at where his life had really begun.

“Happy birthday Harry,” he laughed an old, hollow laugh “I guess you really are the boy who lived.”


End file.
